


Never Say Die

by sara_bocchan (LittleSara)



Category: DCU, Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Birdflash - Freeform, M/M, Post-Endgame, Sad with a Happy Ending, mention of Wally/Artemis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-17
Updated: 2017-03-17
Packaged: 2018-10-01 03:24:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10179578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleSara/pseuds/sara_bocchan
Summary: After the events of June 20th Dick refuses to give up on Wally, and keeps trying to find him and help him get back home.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SilentSilhouette](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilentSilhouette/gifts).



It had been three month. Three month since they last talked. Since he saw him vanish. Since he “died”. And he still couldn’t get himself to believe Wally actually died that day. No, he didn’t want to would be a better phrasing. He simply couldn’t deal with the loss of his best friend, the most important person in his life, he knew that. But he couldn’t care any less, really.

Nightwing had made a lot of wrong decisions over the past year. He should have kept less secrets, should have figured out a lot of things way quicker. Maybe he shouldn’t have asked Artemis for help, or who knows what. But he couldn’t live with the guilt of bringing Wally back into business and causing his death.

He really _couldn’t._

Therefore Wally has to be alive. Somehow. There was no other way.

 

Still, here he was, at the hologram showing his best friend in his Kid Flash uniform. Too transparent to be mistaken as real but if he closed his eyes halfway and just squinted at him he could almost believe it was the real Wally.

Not that it changed anything. He knew Wally wasn’t here. Wherever he was right now, or rather whenever he was, it’s not here, not now. Dick had tried to analyze and calculate a possible point in time and space Wally would end up at. He used all the data he could get from _that day._ But it was no use. He had found out nothing so far.

He was doomed to wait and hope.

Bart didn’t want to talk about any time travel theories to him. He said he didn’t know how it all worked – but Dick was already 99% sure that was a lie. He always had his suspicion that Bart even built his time machine himself, and actually knew a lot about time travel and alike. But he was afraid they would send him back to his time if they knew, and – to be fair – the adults probably would actually do right that. He wouldn’t risk it either if he was in Bart’s position.

It reduced his chances of getting Wally back drastically, however. He needed the younger speedster’s knowledge and wouldn’t stop asking that easily. Sooner or later he would hopefully open up to him.

 

Not today though. He already had spent too much time staring at the hologram, brooding. They would come and look for him if he didn’t walk back to the team soon. And still he couldn’t get himself to look away.

He just missed seeing Wally so much.

They had seen each other less and less over the past years. Especially those few month over the last year. Wally had been so angry with him when he asked Artemis for help. They actually argued about it! It was a first. They maybe had their disagreements and bickerings before but never such a serious argument.

And it was what got Dick into questioning his decisions – seriously questioning them – at last.

When he told Wally, and apologized, he just sighed and smiled at him. _‘It’s what best pals are for, remember?’_ he had said.

Dick had nodded and smiled in return, and it was the first time in months they just sat together, talked about everything and nothing and... just were _themselves._ No hero-talk. No stupid arguments. No serious topics, just them, a bit food and the TV running in the background.

It was the first time in years Dick had felt so calm and at home.

And it was the first time of many evenings (and sometimes mornings) spent together – depending on whenever Dick could take some time off in these busy months. He fell asleep on Wally’s couch occasionally, or the other way around. Literally almost every free minute he had was spent with Wally all of a sudden. It was the best!

But on the downside, it made it even harder to deal with his absence at the moment.

 

He had registered someone walking up to him vaguely, but since they were at the watchtower and there was no possibility for a threat he didn’t give the newcomer much attention. It was probably just someone from the team looking for him anyway.

Nightwing took a deep breath before he finally averted his gaze from Wally’s hologram to look to his left.

It was Artemis – no _Tigress_ – and for a short moment she stared at the hologram too. But then she looked at Dick instead. He could see she was hurt and sad too – no matter how much she tried to hide it. But she already accepted Wally was gone, and wasn’t going to wait and hope for him to ever come back.

It was the easier way, probably. But certainly not the way Dick wanted to go.

She didn’t say a word. There was no need for words, really. They both suffered through their loss in their own ways and knew that. Tigress just carefully put her hand on Nightwing’s shoulder and squeezed it lightly. He nodded in return and – glazing back at the hologram one last time – he left the memorial, following her.

 

~*~

 

Almost five month since the incident and still no actual progress. He had accomplished to get through to Bart a short while ago, and he was right: The boy knew a lot more then he admitted at first. It didn’t help him with getting Wally back however.

Bart rather confirmed his suspicion about the whole issue – after Dick finally got him to believe there was at least a slight chance of Wally not being dead. He thought Dick was just not coping well with the loss and denying reality at first. But when he saw the data and heard him out his expression changed for half a second to utter surprise. Something in the data must have been new to him. Something even he hadn’t noticed before. He didn’t tell Nightwing what exactly it was but at least he finally agreed to help him, told him a lot more about time travel, and – most likely – everything he knew so far.

And Bart really knew a lot about it – no wonder he managed to build a time machine all by himself. He finally admitted the machine was only meant to go one way though. The whole “getting back to your original time stream” part was kind of a mystery to him. Mainly because he never wanted it anyway. But he was willing to look into it now and help Nightwing. And Wally.

Dick also found out that Bart was blaming himself for his cousin’s “death”. That Wally was still alive in the time he came from, and that it was Wally, who trained him and looked after him most of the time.

It all made sense and – even if Bart didn’t say it – he always suspected that he came back in time to save his grandfather. The timing was just too perfect to be a coincidence. Bart probably thought that saving Barry resulted into Wally’s disappearance.

Dick got to know about the side effects time travel could bring with it – Bart’s reason for using the machine instead of just running through time. Generally said a speedster had to run really fast to break through some kind of barrier and get to the timestream, _speedforce,_ whatever you want to call it. But running that fast was always sparking off unintended energy. It would cause other points in time to change. Happenings, the person running through time, didn’t want to change in the first place. The side effects could be _enormous._

Therefore he had made a machine. It was built to give off no energy. No side effects. Save time travel.

Or, no major side effects, because there still would always be one difference. The speedster appearing at a point in time where and when he wasn’t meant to be, and whatever he does there would change his own future.

Bart believed that it kind of creates a parallel universe. Or that maybe this other universe existed all along and simply your consciousness wanders over to your “other you”. Depending on if there _is_ another you to begin with.

There obviously wasn’t one for Bart so he had no personal experience about it, but he knew his grandfather once went through something similar and the general message he got was “don’t mess with time travel”.

Anyways, the general outcome of their knowledge exchange was that Wally was, probably, trapped in a different dimension, would drop out in this dimension sooner or later, or he was still trapped in the speedforce. But the later one was highly unlikely. If Wally accidentally got kicked into time travel that day he surely didn’t know what was going on and was likely to slow down too much and drop out at some random point, right?

The only question now was, did he end up simply running into the future or did he diverge the past and ended up in another present?

Although Bart said there was no way to ever find out what happened exactly, Nightwing had no intention to give up now. He would keep investigating and trying to help Wally find his way back.

 

Not today though. Today was Wally’s birthday and he felt way too off to focus on work.

He missed him even more, if possible.

Being all alone at his apartment in Blüdhaven didn’t help much either but really, there was nowhere else he wanted to be right now, expect for being wherever Wally was.

There was still some of Wally’s stuff scattered around his living room, some college papers and homework he brought over, one of his hoodies, a jacket, heck even the spare toothbrush he left in Dick’s bathroom was still there. And Dick had no intention to pack any of the stuff away anytime soon. It hurt a bit to see Wally’s stuff sometimes, but mostly it made him smile and remember all the good things.

How Wally had complained about his homework and asked him for help every 5 minutes. How he had smirked and winked at him when Dick noticed the extra toothbrush and asked about it. How he had playfully shoved him off the couch and ended up slipping himself, falling off oh so gracelessly.

How they had laughed at each other so much. How they suddenly became so close again, almost like back when they were younger, just….better.

And how they had kissed. Suddenly. Out of nowhere. Just an innocent, short kiss.

Nobody knew about that. It was a onetime thing and they barely got to talk about their feelings afterwards. Dick didn’t even know if Wally actually held any romantic feelings for him, because the stupid ass had to sacrifice himself before he got his answer!

Back then he was so furious with Wally for not even knowing what he wanted. All he had wanted was an honest reply. Did he love him too, or not. But Wally wanted to think about it and well, that’s where it led to.

Dick didn’t even care by now what his answer would have been. He just wanted to know for sure what Wally felt. And really, he would live with Wally coming back and staying with Artemis or whatever, as long as he had his best friend back. He just needed him in his life.

This… _this_ was breaking him way more than he wanted to admit.

 

~*~

 

It had been over eight months now. For the first time in very long he felt at ease. Probably just a side effect from all the medications he was on right now, but rather pleasant nonetheless. For once he wasn’t constantly hurting mentally and kind of happy instead.

It made him think clearer than ever, or at least it felt like that. One tiny voice in his head still told him he should finally let go and accept he wouldn’t see Wally again. But the rest of his mind suddenly saw so clearly what he had been missing all the time.

Wally wasn’t gone, and he never would be. Because he was alive in his memories, in his heart. And more importantly, memories where nothing else then a notion of time. A recording of something you lived through. It was exactly what they needed to get a connection to Wally and open a gate for him, call out to him or whatever.

Dick had to find a way to put his and maybe some of their friends’ memories into use and…do something. Just _something._

He would have to wait for his wounds to heal first but he had already waited _eight frigging months._ Waiting a bit longer wasn’t going to be that much more difficult now that he had hope again.

 

It sounded crazy, he knew it. But it was so crazy that it could actually work.

He had asked Bart for help at first but he didn’t really know how to put memories to use in their situation. He agreed to Dick’s theory, that they maybe could work with them, but the how was a totally different story.

So he went on to Megan. She could use telepathy and manipulate minds after all. She barely knew how to put it into scientific use however. On top of that she was rather alert and concerned when he confronted her with his theories about Wally and…it ended with most of the members of their team gathered in a room, listening to his and Bart’s explanation.

To his own surprise most of them weren’t even surprised and agreed to him. He certainly hadn’t expected that. He thought they would all just think he was crazy or something. But no, they were on his side and especially the older members wanted to help and try bringing Wally back.

_‘We have seen so many crazy things in our lives – there is literally nothing that could still surprise us.’_

Dick could only nod and smile.  
Together they came up with a plan. Megan and Zatanna would do the main work, Bart would help by trying to open a path to the speedforce and everybody else who knew Wally and wanted to help would focus on any strong memories with the speedster and provide them to Megan.

Nightwing knew this wouldn’t work on the first try and they would have to polish their work a few times before they even had the slightest chance of success. But he would keep trying, and hopefully everyone else would too.

 

~*~

 

It was exactly 516 days after Wally’s disappearance. They had just performed another try to reach out to him, without success. Only, they just didn’t know yet that they had been reaching Wally for a while already. He just hadn’t managed to make it back to them in time. Not before they stopped to call for him. It had been too difficult to follow their voices.

Wally couldn’t remember where he was coming from or why he was running at all, but he heard his friends calling out for him, over and over again. And they got louder and clearer every time.

Today was the day, when he finally was able to pinpoint where he had to go. He finally could see the path in front of himself clearly and…straight ran into his friends, literally.

He barely dodged from running into Megan or Zatanna but ended up crashing into Bart instead, stumbled over him, and pulled Dick down as well.

 

Everything was quiet for a long moment, expect for Wally’s ragged breathing. No one dared to move either, until Bart shoved his cousin’s leg off his chest and threw himself halfway on top of him instead, hugging him tightly. Wally grunted in return – probably being hugged too tight to breath properly for a second there – and Dick finally snapped out of it as well.

Both speedsters were lying halfway on top of his chest, Wally’s face resting sideways on his ribcage, eyes closed, while his arms were thrown out widely – one of them on the floor next to Dick’s leg, the other one right next to his face.

He sat up carefully, bringing Wally up with him and making Bart slide of. He moved his arms around Wally’s back, and squeezed him tightly for a second. He made a disapproving noise in return, but loosely returned the hug nonetheless.  
Dick still couldn’t believe this was really happening. It would probably take him quite a while to do so, he knew that. But it would be okay. Everything would _finally_ be okay again.

_‘Welcome home, Wally.’_


End file.
